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Ronald G. Bernoski, president of the Association of Administrative Law Judges, was among those who responded to last week's column on the government's new roster of more than 600 administrative law judge candidates.The Social Security Administration "indicated it had funding to hire 150 new administrative law judges and 92 support staff members to begin clearing the backlog of disability cases," Bernoski wrote. "This is an unjustifiable management decision.
"Each judge needs four to five staff members to prepare cases for the judge to review and to draft the judge's decisions. The 1,150 judges in SSA are already severely short of staff members. In many offices judges are unable to get enough prepared cases to fill their schedules.
"To hire 150 judges and only 92 staff members is a hollow gesture and another example of poor management decisions at the Social Security Administration."
Nov 12, 2007
Bernoski Letter Quoted In Baltimore Sun
From Melissa Harris' "Federal Worker" column in the Baltimore Sun:
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5 comments:
serve and volley...SSA attempts to blame judges for not doing their job, ALJ union responds with poor SSA management response. the thing is, both sides are partially right.
Many ODAR judges loaf at home two or three days a week, a practice that severely impacts productivity.
That said, ODAR management also is at fault by failing to provide the judges with the support staff they need to move cases along.
Bernoski is correct on two main points: 1) ODAR is understaffed already, and 2) 92 support staff isn't a quarter of what 150 ALJs would need. The support staff - Case techs, case intake, systems administrators - all are being worked to death and are all underpaid, and some extremely misclassified (Example: HOSA position which is classified under a clerical classification 335 should be under Information Technology 2200 series) If they want to retain AND recruit the best, classify correctly and pay the hard-working staff accordingly...
Did Mr. Bernoski offer any suggestions of how he would begin to resolve the issues with the hearing process and ODAR? Or did he just throw the obligatory stones of "mismanagement". Either you are part of the solution or you are part of the problem.
The trouble with Ron's typical cheap shot is that the offices into which the 150 new ALJs would be assigned would be chosen on the basis--at least in part--that there was already support staff there. Doh. But as other commenters have noted, both sides here deserve each other, and neither adds much value.
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